elderflower afternoon

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Menu
Veggie Plate
Cheese Plate (including handmade VT brie from a nearby farm!)
Meat Plate
Honeycomb, Blue Cheese and Fresh Fruit Plate
Fig Chutney with Baguette
Cucumber, Cream Cheese and Dill Tea Sandwiches
Prosciutto & Gruyere Pastry Pinwheels
Smoked Turkey Tea Sandwiches with Arugula Mayonaise
Devilled Eggs with radishes, chives & thyme
Pumpkin and Fennel Pastries
Tomato and Tapenade Tartlets
Asiago-Stuffed Dates with Bacon and Smoked Paprika
Mini Zucchini and Goat Cheese Tarts
Hickory-Bacon and Roasted-Corn Gougeres

My aunt and mother worked like mad to bring us this delicious feast, & we lucked out by getting free use of a professional kitchen for the weekend. A lifesaver! General consensus was that the food was pretty incredible, so I’ve included the menu here. It took about 2 days to finish it all.

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Cocktails

Bee’s Knees ~ Gin, lemon juice, honey syrup
The Monarch ~ Gin, St. Germain Elderflower, lemon, mint, up
Old- Fashioned ~ Bourbon, bitters, honey syrup, orange

Details

We stamped & embossed brown paper (recycled bags!) with a silverware motif, then wrapped silver (some thrifted, some family) in linen napkins, and tucked them inside. My mama made scalloped linen tablecloths, to fit the picnic tables that stay up at the camp, so we can have fancy picnics from here on out. An old cigar box became a tip jar for the bartender, Angeliska hand wrote the menu cards (I did have little forked sticks to glue them to but that didn’t get finished.)  We thrifted milk glass serving platters and tea tiers, my brother cut the birch stumps for the cake stands. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters sent us Fair Trade Vermont Country Blend as a wedding gift. My brother built a bar with rough planks and tree stumps, we had an antique barrel for garbage, an old 1940s Hires root beer cooler held Vermont Maple Soda &  Boylan Seltzer (it matched our green color.)  The cocktail sign was a mirror found in the thrift shop the day before for $2, with Dresden paper letters glued on. The moss filled milk glass urns went home with a few people, the rest we saved for future holiday parties. We splurged on a few jadeite pieces, wedding gifts to ourselves!

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Holly made 5 small cakes, but the 2 chocolate ones melted en route!! My brother didn’t mind and ate them out of a bowl with whipped cream. The survivors made up the wedding cake, inspired by Tasha Tudor – though with marzipan mushrooms instead of meringue – and the cake topper is a Wendy Addison creation. Colin & Annie worked tirelessly through the night to make all those teeny mushrooms!!

Cakes

Almond genoise with rose geranium buttercream
Sour lemon cake with meyer lemon buttercream
Vanilla infused brown butter cake with dulce de leche buttercream

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Photography: JEREMY HARRIS WEDDINGS (NYC)
Secondary Photography: Photos 2, 4, 13, 18  by EMILY FERRO (VT)

These photos are not to be added to blogs, Pinterest, Tumblr, or any other sharing site, please.

23 Comments

  1. drooling over these. even my husband, who could not care less about wedding photos, thought these were amazing. and that you were a beautiful bride… and trust me, ed does not offer up compliments gratuitously.

  2. again, absolutely gorgeous! i’m hungry! i’m feeling like i should copy your entire menu! such a sophisticated-olde-tyme picnic party!!!

    also, that kid with the licorice pipe! every wedding should have licorice pipes!

  3. p.j. champers!!! + hendricks + st germain. mmmm favorite favorites!
    good lord i can’t wait until i can drink again.

    what are those green wrapped candies? so pretty. it’s all so pretty.

    1. eeek, i have an email started for you! we left so much extra alcohol in vermont, i want to go home just to have parties.

      the candies are russian and have a little gold squirrel on them. they’re chocolate covered nougaty-toffee-ish? they’re a bit iffy on the teeth, though.

  4. It all looks absolutely stunning… I think I could stare at all of your wedding photos with my jaw dropped for hours. You are so creative, and everything looks gorgeous together.

  5. my dream feast! so many dainties to choose from! i want to be there now. i don’t have anything original to add to the chorus of oohs and aahs, but i agree with them whole heartedly.

  6. Lovely wedding photos! The food looks like it was scrumptious and the cocktails you served sound like they were the perfect compliment. Your wedding looks like it was out of a fairytale.

  7. Tamara, you couldn’t be mundane if you tried, could you?

    Your wedding was powered by pure inspiration and I envy those guests. All the food is amazing. Your cake flavors blow my mind and the cocktails and sign have charmed me to death. Yes, I am dead now. 😉

    1. haha! i feel like i’ve been trying pretty hard to be mundane lately, i’m so burnt out from the wedding!

      the cake flavors were all Holly, though she knows rose geranium is my favorite!

  8. Beautiful in every way.

    Have been wanting a bottle of St. Germain for some time, taking this as my go ahead sign. Thank you for the recipes. How wonderful for you your mom and aunt worked so hard in preparation to make your day so lovely!

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